We don’t know any more
where our lives belong
or even where to hide.
The walls of home
hold nothing up
or out
and the door hangs slack
on the hinge.
Where have our lives gone ?
I consult the… Continue reading The Flotsam of Frantic Dreams
Category Poetry
High Noon this Easter
Let’s recall the film “High Noon,” that great Western. The outlaw and his hoodlum cronies are riding into town. They want revenge on the sheriff, the keeper of the law. The sheriff scours the town looking for support, a posse of townspeople who will help him defend their community from the outlaws. The townspeople know… Continue reading High Noon this Easter
The Rule of the Rough Beast
The “Rough Beast” is a phrase from “The Second Coming” by YB Yeats. Written in 1919, it is a poem that becomes more topical with each passing day.
The last three lines of the poem above are a deliberate reference… Continue reading The Rule of the Rough Beast
BALLAD OF REFUGE by David Punter
I come in fear. The wheels, the stuttering engine,
By road or wave; the endless killing payments.
Bit by bit, my mind returns to rubble.
You come in fear. The hunched back, failed bravado,
They make me squirm. You have no place here, brother;
Get back, for you… Continue reading BALLAD OF REFUGE by David Punter
HATRED : A SESTINA by Robert Friend
Hatred
is wanting
to hurt
and its fulfillment
dancing
on someone’s grave.
Because the insult was grave,
I must repay hatred with hatred,
abandon all pleasure: the dancing,
the flirting, the wallowing wantings
of every day. How drab their fulfillment
Despatches to my Gazan Son
Justin C McIntosh has given his permission for his photograph above to be used for the cover of a long Turkish poem by Cahit Koytak, now published as a book with an English translation alongside. I am proud to have been one of the translators… Continue reading Despatches to my Gazan Son
The Angel Overhead
In his grief, he asked the angel hanging overhead,
his faceless confessor :
Why, Lord, do sinners’ ways so grossly prosper ?
How can you allow the Lie so fatly to preside ?
And the angel answered :
I invited you to my feast,
my laden tables… Continue reading The Angel Overhead
Body Parts
After death the eye fixes
of course. It was just a part –
now discontinued.
Each pupil has stopped
in its own disjointed way,
having nothing
to look at any more,
no one to show.
I looked at her, the mother
of my children.